422 AMERIGO VESPUCCI AMERIGO VESPUCCI. See VESPUCCI. AMERSFOORT, a town of the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht, with a port on the river Eem, about 10 m. from its mouth in the Zuyder-Zee, and 12 m. E. K E. of Utrecht ; pop. in 1867, 13,258, nearly half Roman Catho- lics. It has manufactories of cotton and wool- len stuffs, an industrial school, a Latin school, and a Jansenist seminary. Corn and tobacco are cultivated very extensively in the vicinity, and a brisk trade is carried on. AMES, Edward R., D. D., an American clergy- man, bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, born at Amesville, Ohio, May 20, 1806. In 1826 he entered the Ohio university at Athens, and in 1828 opened a high school at Lebanon, 111., which was the germ of McKendree col- lege. After remaining here until 1830, he en- tered the itinerant ministry as a member of the Indiana conference. Being one of the del- egates to the general conference of 1840, he was elected corresponding secretary of the missionary society for the south and west. From 1844 to 1852 he was a presiding elder in the Indiana conference, and was then elected bishop. He was the first Methodist bishop to visit the Pacific coast. During the civil war he served on several important commissions. Since 1861 he has resided in Baltimore. AMES, Fisher, an American orator, states- man, and political writer, born in Dedharn, Mass., April 9, 1758, died there, July 4, 1808. His father, who was a physician, died when the son was but 6 years old, but his loss was in some degree supplied by the energy and good sense of his widow. Fisher graduated at Harvard college at the age of 16. His youth, the disturbed state of public affairs, and the narrowness of the family means, delayed for several years his entrance into the profes- sion of the law. During this interval, how- ever, he was busily educating himself by the study of the Latin and English classics. In 1781 he was admitted to the bar, and began practice in his native town. But it was his political essays in the Boston newspapers, un- der the signatures of Brutus and Camillus, that first made his abilities generally known. When their authorship was discovered, he entered into private and political intimacy with the leading men of his own state and elsewhere, who were afterward the prominent feder- alists of the Washington school. He was a member of the Massachusetts convention as- sembled in 1788 for ratifying the federal con- stitution, and made himself conspicuous by the zeaj and eloquence with which he recommend- ed its adoption. When the federal government went into operation, Mr. Ames was elected the first representative of his district, which then included Boston, in congress,and kept his seat during the eigiit years of Washington's administration. HisVeadiness in debate and the splendor of his se speeches place him in the very first rank of parliamentary orators. At the close of his speech advocating the ap- AMES propriation required for the execution of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, a member of the opposite party moved an adjournment, on the ground that the house was not in a state of mind to dwell calmly on the question when fresh from the excitement of its eloquence. At the close of his fourth term Mr. Ames left con- gress and returned to his profession. His inter- est in public affairs at that most excited period was manifested by fresh essays in the newspa- pers ; but he took no immediate part in politics and accepted no office, excepting that of execu- tive councillor under the administration of Governor Sumner. On the death of Washing- ton he pronounced his eulogy before the legis- lature of Massachusetts. The gradual failure of his health compelled him soon to withdraw from the active practice of his profession, and he spent the last years of his life in philo- sophic retirement. He was married in 1792 to Frances, daughter of John Worthington of Springfield, and in the occupations of domestic life, the superintendence of his farm and orchards, the study of literature, and the soci- ety of a brilliant circle of friends, his life wore away peacefully and happily. The chief draw- back to his satisfaction was found in the gloomy forebodings as to the future of his country and the success of the experiment of republican government, which he felt in common with most of his school of politics. His works were collected and published in one volume soon after his death, with a memoir writ- ten by the Rev. John Thornton Kirkland. An enlarged edition, in two volumes, appeared in 1854, edited by his son, Mr. Seth Ames, of Cambridge, Mass. The first volume of this edition is composed of his letters, and they add to his former reputation that of one of the liveliest, wittiest, and most graceful of letter- writers. His orations, essays, and letters are of the highest excellence in their several de- partments, although the exuberance of his imagination, displayed in the multitude and splendor of his metaphors and illustrations, is sometimes perhaps a little excessive, notwith- standing their felicity and appositeness. His appearance was attractive, his manners gentle and prepossessing, the play of his wit and imagination brilliant and incessant. Many of his bons mots have passed into proverbs. AMES, Joseph, an American portrait painter, born in Rosebury, N. H., about 1825, died Oct. 30, 1872. He practised his art many years in Boston. Among his chief works are portraits of Pius IX., Rachel, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, and President Felton of Harvard college. His "Death of Webster," a large composition con- taining a number of figures, has been engraved. AMES, Joseph, an English antiquary, born in Yarmouth, Jan. 23, 1689, died Oct. 7, 1759. He was a ship chandler or an ironmonger in Wapping, London, and wrote a work entitled " Typographical Antiquities, being an Historical Account of Printing in England, with some Memoirs of our Ancient Printers." It was a
